The Drone Center’s Weekly Roundup: 3/27/17

Animal Dynamics plans to unveil a demonstrator of its planned biomimetic microdrone later this year. Image via: TechCrunch

March 20, 2017 – March 26, 2017

News

A U.S. drone strike in Afghanistan killed Qari Yasin, an al-Qaeda leader who was responsible for a 2008 attack on a hotel in Islamabad. The strike took place on March 19 in the southeastern Paktika province. (New York Times)

A report published by the Federal Aviation Administration predicts that the number of hobby drones in the U.S. National Airspace System will rise from 1.1 million in 2016 to more than 3.5 million in 2021. In its “Aerospace Forecast Report fiscal Years 2017 to 2037” report, the FAA also anticipates that the number of commercial drones will rise to somewhere between 442,000 and 1.6 million by 2021. (Flying Magazine)

A U.S. federal judge ruled against drone pilot David Boggs in a lawsuit against James Merideth, the Kentucky man who shot down Boggs’ drone with a shotgun in 2015. The court declined to rule whether or not Boggs’ drone flight constituted an act of trespass. In an earlier case, a Bullitt County judge had dismissed charges against Merideth for the shootdown. (ArsTechnica)

Saudi Arabia will begin producing the Chinese Caihong-4 surveillance and strike drone domestically. According to IHS Jane’s Defence Weekly, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation partnered with the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology to initiate the program.

For updates, news, and commentary, follow us on Twitter. The Weekly Drone Roundup is a newsletter from the Center for the Study of the Drone. It covers news, commentary, analysis and technology from the drone world. You can subscribe to the Roundup here.